Book review – Anne Tyler – “Vinegar Girl” #amreading

I pulled this off the TBR a little out of order because it was the first smaller book on the shelf which would bear rattling around in my rucksack for a day out officiating at cross-country: I knew I’d have a bit of reading time while my friend Dave zipped round parkrun on the way. My lovely friend Laura bought this for me when we met up last year as a birthday present – how lovely to march round the charity shops of Stafford demanding books!

I have a new plan for reading my TBR which might happen and might not: the oldest, the newest and one from the Kindle, in rotation (apart from my Murdoch a month and any review books that are in). Might work, and will let me get to my latest acquisition sooner (see more on that below).

Anne Tyler – “Vinegar Girl”

(15 February 2018 – from Laura)

Not a standard Anne Tyler (and I thought it would be her last when I got it, as she’d announced that she would stop writing: I will be getting the paperback of her new one as soon as it comes out …) as it’s a retelling of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”. Now, while I remember the main characters and their characteristics, and the vague outline of the story, I’m not going to do a blow-by-blow comparison. I love Tyler and I found myself just reading it for that aspect, as a novel by a favourite author. The retelling is in there, though, and cleverly done, although her characters are always quirky and you can’t think that just any woman would behave as Kate does.

So it worked as a novel on its own and was entertaining and a good read. Kate was believably mardy, as she is supposed to be, but her home set-up with her dad and his systems and her very different sister was completely Tylerian. The family and their relationships, including with aunts and uncles, are as beautifully done as you would expect, and the overseas characters are drawn carefully and their accents got across through their grammar, which we’re however reminded is not the only thing about them, but is used to show Kate’s thinking and noticing (I’ve just been reading a blog post from Louise Harnby about how to express accents in fiction (here) which is why this struck me, I think). A good read.

I did mention this on my running round-up post on Sunday, but for anyone who skips those, a new acquisition. I have to mention that only I could be officiating at a county cross-country match and STILL manage to acquire a book – my friend Kate from running club had offered to pass it to me but we’d not coincided until now, so she managed to get it to me in a gap between a race starting and me timing it through at the finish, after her own race. Good work! “A Life Without Limits” is meant to be one of the best sporting autobiographies ever and I can’t wait to dive into it: I know I really enjoyed her book on how to do triathlons even though I have absolutely zero interest in doing a triathlon!

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Vinegar Girl is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, in which each play is being revisited by a different novelist. I’ve read 3 of the 7 so far and have one TBR. I really enjoyed this though Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood’s take on The Tempest, is even better. (The other I’ve read was Tracy Chevalier’s take on Othello – New Boy – interesting but not my favourite of her books).

Yes, it’s not really my thing to read re-doings of Shakespeare etc., I only made the exception because of who wrote it (though I will read the Atwood, too, I imagine). This was good just as a book, as well, I thought.

You’re right, one year old isn’t that bad. I was actually surprised when I started getting to my “oldest” book and it was only about 5 years old. I thought for sure there would have been some around longer than that.

I’ve always had a read in order of acquisition model going, and I tend to get to a year old at worst (at this time of year as I tend to acquire at Christmas and then birthday). But I quite like getting to read something I’ve only just had!